Jogikula

It definitely felt like we left the mountains behind today, which was sad.

By now, we'd all settled into our breakfast classics: Cecilia's porridge, James's eggs, and my muesli. Sadly, there was a big furry centipede-like creature in the sugar jar, so I had a little freak out first thing in the morning.

After that, we set off promptly to the next village, Tilche, where we were to meet the jeep that would take us down to Besisahar.

I chatted with Cecilia for most of the walk and spoke about how she found the love of her life, her husband, which was not a straightforward tale, but was really beautiful to hear.

When we arrived at the jeep, James and I squished into the front seat, with Cecilia and two other Nepalese ladies and their two children in the back seat, and Mitra and another guy sitting/standing in the open-topped cargo area.

Although it was bumpy for lots of the 4+ hour route, it was actually not bad compared to our Langtang return. The hardest part for me was trying not to roll onto the driver next to me, as I had no seatbelt available, and keeping my legs out of the way when he needed to shift gear.

We'd heard tell that the Annapurna trek route went up roads now, and we saw this first hand as there were quite a few trekkers going up the road with all their gear while us and lots of other jeeps and lorries went by, throwing up dust and exhaust fumes. We definitely picked the better trek.

As we got lower in altitude, it got steadily hotter. When we arrived in Besisahar, we found ourselves in a bustling city and us in our smelly dusty trekking gear. We ate a delicious lunch in the Manaslu restaurant and then stayed in their super cute blue guesthouse across the street. Our window view was of a cement wall, which was great for echoing the sound of other rooms' noise to us and making it super hard to tell where the goat bleating noise was coming from. Back in civilization, I felt very unsure of what to do with myself, without any mountain to look at and only a busy street to explore.

At lunch, Cecilia showed us the new clothes she'd purchased as it was easier than trying to wash your clothes, and we chatted and exchanged tales. Getting to sleep was much louder and more chaotic than in the mountains, with the noise of someone watching Call of Duty footage floating up to us and someone deciding 9 pm was a good time to blast the latest Nepali hits, but we drifted off eventually.Read more